Tubular skylights have been provided for illuminating the interiors of buildings in an aesthetically pleasing and energy efficient way with natural sunlight. An example of a commercially successful skylight is disclosed in the present assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,622, and further examples of effective tubular skylights are disclosed in the present assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,713 and in allowed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/126,331, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In tubular skylights such as the those mentioned above, a transparent plastic dome is mounted on a roof of a building by means of a metal flashing that is attached to the roof. Extending down from the dome is a metal tube that has a highly reflective inner surface. The tube extends down to the ceiling of the interior room sought to be illuminated, where it terminates at a disk-shaped light diffuser mounted on the ceiling by means of one or more support rings that engage the lower end of the tube.
It will be appreciated that with the above general description of tubular skylights in mind, many components must be connected together. As but one example, the tube itself is ordinarily made from a flat sheet of metal that is bent into a cylindrical shape to form the tube, with the opposite ends of the sheet of metal slightly overlapping each other in the cylindrical configuration and being held in the cylindrical configuration by manually taping the length of the joint between the ends of the bent sheet. As understood by the present invention, while effective, the above-mentioned manual means for forming the tube can result in tubes having diameters that might exhibit deviations slightly from design. Moreover, it is sometimes desirable that the tube slightly taper, i.e., assume a slightly frusto-conical shape, and it is difficult to precisely configure a tube to have such a shape using the manual taping method described above. Fortunately, the present invention recognizes that it is possible to easily and with a high degree of repeatability effect a precisely-configured skylight tube.
As another example, consider the connection between the plastic dome and metal flashing. A metal screw is advanced through an ABS washer that is positioned in a hole in the dome, and the screw engages the metal flashing. As recognized herein, the washer can sometimes undesirably rotate in the hole of the dome, thereby rendering it less than optimally effective as a connection interface with the screw and, hence, the flashing to which the dome is mounted.
As yet other examples, connecting the diffuser and the various support rings to the lower end of the tube and to the ceiling must be accomplished in relatively confined areas, and accordingly can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task. The present invention understands that such connections can be effected quickly and securely by the novel connecting systems and methods disclosed herein.